A great local example of forgiveness

A stunning example of forgiveness played out on social media and national TV when the father of one of the two eight-year-old boys killed at Banksia Road school, in Western Sydney, publicly forgave the woman who killed his son.

“We have a special message here for the lady that was involved in the accident,” the father of Jihad Darwiche says in a Facebook video in which hearse driver Ahmad Hraichie translates his message. “[The family] want to sit with this lady and talk with her and tell her ‘we forgive you’.”

“No retaliation is coming from the family of the boy, they have forgiven.”

Hraichie makes it clear that the boy’s family disapproves of any harassment of the driver involved in the accident that killed the boys.

“People are coming and telling them what’s happening and that this lady’s being abused, they don’t want none of this to happen,” Mr Hraichie said.

“They are telling everyone out there: ‘forgive her, it’s an honest mistake, it could have happened to any one of us’.”

At Eternity, if a Christian had made such an emphatic act of forgiveness, we would have definitely covered this story. We are a Christian news service.

In this case the hearse was being driven down Roberts Road to the Lakemba Mosque, and the forgiveness is the act of a Muslim man. We want to salute his gracious act.